Zheng Guanying, Merchant Reformer of Late Qing China and his Infl ...

Chapter six examines Zheng Guanying's lifelong concern about morality and the metaphysical Way and his dedication to religious Daoism in his senior years. This chapter shows that the spiritual world of late Qing reformers, as a hidden, private space, was still fundamentally traditional, though not necessarily orthodox, and moral perfection became the last stand of an enlightened thinker who had been largely frustrated by reality. Moreover, this chapter will question the former research paradigm that overemphasized Zheng's identity as a Westernized thinker by focusing on his Daoist religious identity. A consideration of this question will hopefully attract more interest in the relationship between twentieth-century Chinese reform and traditional belief systems.

Above all, this story is essentially a research monograph on the career and thought of an important social thinker in late imperial China. But it attempts to go beyond an analysis of ideas and activities. Rather, my work relates the object, Zheng Guanying, to late imperial China's changing social situation and the larger cultural environment—from rapid urbanization and industrialization to transregional migration; from the formation of a critical intellectuals’ group to the emergence of modern print media and public opinion; from Zheng's attempt to integrate Western learning with Chinese tradition to his wrestling with the complexity of Chinese traditions; and from his own activities to his social network. Zheng Guanying provided a new perspective toward understanding late Qing reform and the meaning of being Chinese in these turbulent years.